By a wide margin the many different projects for an open source phone OS. From GrapheneOS to PostmarketOS, from Ubuntu Mobile to Plasma Mobile.
I am sick and tired of corporations telling me how I can use my phone. I am sick and tired of corporations deciding what apps I can install, from where, and what data they are allowed to collect. I am done with enshittification and the gradual disappearing of all useful information, either behind a paywall, or replaced by monetized content.
The last straw was when Google Maps decided to replace the “gas station on the route” feature that sent you to the cheapest gas station to some other logic it didn’t disclose, but that stinks of affiliate preference.
Absolutely, fully agree here. An Open Source widely applicable phone OS would benefit millions of people. Possibly billions.
The frustrating part of this is how much of the smartphone world is dependent on companies playing along.
I have a Venmo business account I use from time to time. I tried to log in on it from my laptop yesterday to check my balance. I was met with this:
We used to complain that apps are just worse versions of websites, but increasingly, you’re being forced to install an app just to do basic things.
Is there any way to guarantee every app will be available on a linux phone? We can grab APKs at the moment off sketchy websites, but I don’t know how much longer that’s going to work after Google kills sideloading.
Can you not just log in on a mobile browser in desktop only mode?
No. This is literally from a desktop browser. That feature is only available on the app.
Ugh. Fuck those people. That should be a crime.
It really sucks, but at least there are alternatives to venmo. I’ve heard that in Europe, you’re require to have an app to show your Id or use the bank or some such.
Nah. In Europe, Venmo is just not a thing, because bank transfers are free and fast. IDs are a plastic card, just like almost everywhere else.
Banking apps are a bit more problematic, because most people (and probably banks, idk) prefer if you use those not just if you have a smartphone and want to do banking on it, but also as a second factor for when you want to log in on your desktop.
There’s plenty of alternatives (TAN readers, for example), but none as simple or seamless, unfortunately. But bank websites are fully featured (and usually more so than the app, actually).
You use an IBAN to send money. Yeah technically it’s your bank, but it’s a digital transfer without a middleman.
You can even put notes on it to pay invoices.
Thoughts on GNU TALER??
Is it what we should all be using? What are its flaws and shortcomings?
I really dislike the name is the main thing.
atm, if you’re using Waydroid, you can use Aurora Store/ Droid. No shady websites needed!
Let alone open source!
Can someone ELI5, why the phone landscape is so different from PCs? Why can I take a Linux iso and install it on basically any x86 pc from the last 25 years, but if I want to install anything on my phone, I need an image specially tailored for my specific model.
PCs have a BIOS/UEFI that provides hardware discovery and abstraction to the OS, while phones lack that and need the OS to know what hardware to expect.
20 years ago when the predecessors to modern smartphone hardware were being designed, there probably would have been meaningful costs to adding that kind of flexibility. There probably wouldn’t today, but there’s also no motivation for phone makers to do it.
Same!!!
Thoughts on /e/OS? Been thinking of giving fairphone 6 a go.
/e/OS is just another android rom, and unlike calyxOS or grapheneOS, /e/OS isn’t very privacy focused. There’s some weird stuff regarding a hidden “license id” and some of their services rely in openAI. You might as well just use a “real” privacy-first android rom if you’re trying to get away from tech giants, their tracking and closed source software.
That’s interesting. Where can I learn more about the lack of safety features and the connection to OpenAI? Seems pretty surprising, especially considering they tout safety and data privacy as their primary selling point.
My main source regarding the privacy/security stuff is this blog (in German). To be clear, /e/ isn’t bad on that front, the alternatives are just better.
You can read mode on the OpenAI integration in the /e/OS forums and the fairphone forums.
Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing! Definitely concerning, especially the openAI stuff. I guess I will take a look at grapheneOS again, but I just hate the idea that I need to buy a google product in order to use it.
CalyxOS development is paused right now but it’s still available and campatible with more devices. I wouldn’t recommend a currently unsupported OS but personally I’m still using it on my Pixel 7a. I had some google integration issues in GrapheneOS, plus I prefer the focus on privacy instead of security.
Best answer: Blender by far, Blender is ON FIRE right now, so many exciting things are happening.
The answer my heart gives: Beyond All Reason (my heart really loves watching robots and tanks blow each other up in scifi battles).
Blender is a contender for the best go-to example in the history of open-source software. It’s easy for any layperson to understand what it is (unlike, say, Linux), and it’s genuinely better than the for-profit competition in a lot of aspects. There’s nothing else like it.
It’s been growing for decades, and its community is the best.
I’m really not in that space so I only get to watch from the sidelines, but I’ve always been in awe of Blender.
Fuuuck, gotta try to learn it again. I grew up on 3dsMax which was like the king of 3D in video game dev, and blender is/was just so different. Must be some simple tutos out there now how to make millimeter precise stuff & boolean operations on volumes for my 3D printing…
The good thing with open source is they can’t just screw you over with new workflows or other (looking at you Unity, degrading float point resolution after 2.6).
Must be some simple tutos out there now how to make millimeter precise stuff & boolean operations on volumes for my 3D printing…
Sounds like you need CAD software instead of 3D modeling software. Very different!
FreeCAD exists and is FOSS but IMO is not very user-friendly. Then again I never seriously tried using it or watching tutorials or anything, so this might be unfair. Give it a shot I suppose!
The few times I needed to design something in CAD, I had success with Fusion 360. It’s easy to use and gets the job done, but it’s kinda gross with its confusing (mandatory?) cloud integration.
You can ask in 3D printing circles what CAD software people use and recommend, they’ll certainly know better than me! If you’re up for giving FreeCAD a shot, I’ll be happy to hear your experience with it. I’d really like to know if it’s better than I give it credit for.
Edit: seems like a lot has changed since I last checked out FreeCAD. Version 1.0 was released and I’m sure it’s better since I tried it. So forget what I said, it’s probably good!
Thanks, but I have already tried out freecad and also that fusion 360 IIRC it was very nice on paper, making planes everywhere :-), but as you say very different from what I know! I just need to use basic shapes, say extract a spline, and combine/cut with boolean operators, and then fine tune the mesh and its vertices itself, well it is how I have always done it, not engineer worthy but it works for me…
Take a peek at the CAD Sketcher add-on. https://www.cadsketcher.com/
Thanks, will check out!
I used 3dsmax a lot around 25ish years ago, and even though I pirated it, I remember it costing a fortune.
After getting back into 3D printing I needed something with which to do modelling, and as I’m exclusively on Linux I decided to dive into Blender.
My conclusion is that blender today is better than 3dsmax way back. I just need to translate allof my learned 3dsmax terms and techniques into blender.
I just recently found out of Beyond all Reason and it looks so promising. I saw some guy on youtube commenting a few games.
I hope it catches on, not many big RTS games nowadays, and this one is open source too.
BAR and the spring/recoil engine have been in development for 20 years, it is a really impressive community and I have zero doubt BAR will grow massively in popularity, it doesn’t just look cool in action, the moment to moment gameplay has been tweaked and refined for years and years while sticking with a coherent design vision. Not many other games can say that in the RTS genre or otherwise and you can feel the difference immediately after you get a handle on the combat tactics.
BAR 4 life!
I’m going to have to say OpenStreetMap, it’s always going to have a place in my heart.
Are there any mapping apps thats not google maps that has traffic data? I haven’t looked in a while, but last time I did it was a ‘no’ and I’m just shocked this hasn’t really been solved. Either by highjacking google maps data, or using local news data to fill in areas of maps with heavy traffic etc. There’s gotta be some way to solve this.
Like I get it, projects can’t just wholesale use google maps data, they’ll get shut down, but there’s no side loaded plugin you can load to use Google’s traffic data and the project just kind of winks in their github page and says ‘we don’t encourage anyone to use this plugin…’?
Magic Earth. Sometimes it crashes and gives confusing voice instructions. But it has traffic data and is therefore my daily driver.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Magic_Earth
Not
owned by HaliburtonI am now wondering if these are two different things both named magic earth?
Yeah. My bad. Not owned by Halliburton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Earth_Inc.
Meshtastic. I don’t use it yet, but it is something interesting that I’ve kinda been low-key obsessed about.
Eventually, telecoms are gonna require IDs, internet service will require IDs. Computers will have DRMs and “AI” scanning your device to censor stuff.
Meshtashtic could be the backbone of a new “internet”. One that’s free from corporate control. We could build a forum on top of it.
Lol, I’m pretty deep into meshtastic but there is no chance that LoRa could be the backbone of a new internet. Bandwidth is far too low
Who needs Bandwidth
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⠤⣚⣻⣥⣴⣶⣶⣯⡕⢄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠔⣡⣾⣿⡿⠟⠛⠛⠛⠻⠛⠻⣦⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣚⣿⣿⡏⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⣿⣿⣯⠞⣻⡆⠀⢀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣼⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⣿⡿⢣⡾⢻⣷⣾⣿⣿⣿⡟⠻⣿⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⣿⡇⢸⣼⠯⢿⣯⡙⢋⣡⣄⣀⣈⣿⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⡧⠤⠉⠉⠙⡦⢙⣿⣯⣿⣿⣿⣿⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡿⢷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⣼⣿⣿⣿⣶⣶⡏⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⣀⣴⡏⠀⠸⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣯⡅⠒⡄⢀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠾⠛⢋⣠⣡⡆⠀⣳⡀⠀⠀⢠⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣇⠀⠀⣆⣈⣗⣄⠀ ⠒⢿⡶⢾⣽⣧⣼⠁⠈⠉⢚⣿⣿⠏⠋⠘⢻⣿⣿⣿⣤⣤⣽⠘⣿⣿⡦
when you can just send ASCII Memes?(Roll Safe, aka: “Guy Taps Forehead” Meme)
🤣 how many chars is this? Would it make it past the 200 character limit?
Reticulum would be much closer as it supports many different forms of networking
And Lora is by itself proprietary isn’t it?
Correct, I do believe there is an open source alternative but I haven’t done any reading on it
I love these kind of things too.
Doubt that it would be Meshtastic, it is inherently not built for internet levels of bandwidth. But I can see a future where you have intranets that are free and community driven with something like Meshtastic with higher bandwidth and you still pay for an ISP that can give you access to the full internet (because nothing currently can replace underwater optic fiber)
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve touched it, but godot is always going to have my favor. It works very well, doesn’t have any bullshit.
I just need more motivation to finish my existing project, and keep the desire for a new one at bay.
I’ve recently heard of Bevy, which is a new FOSS game engine made with Rust! I don’t know a lot about it but my gamedev friend is excited about it. He doesn’t care as much about it being FOSS (he’s using Unreal for his current game) but it’s supposed to just be good. Unreal is an absolute pain to work with.
That said, it’s still in early stages. It’s usable from what I understand, but even their quick start introduction warns about it and advises people to use Godot if they’re looking for a mature, stable engine.
I read an interesting article a while back (more like scanned it, because TL;DR) where the author explained why they were leaving Rust for game development. It may be of interest to your friend.
Thanks! I’ve sent it to him and I’ll try to skim it myself.
You’re welcome!
Godot is the beast. Using it on linux with C# and except having to deal with C# 🤓 it works fantasticly well!
I’ve been using it on linux as well, though I’ve been using godot script. I’m not the biggest fan of godot script, but again it gets the job done and has IMO very little bullshit.
Home assistant!
RISC-V by far.
Oh yes, we’re gonna need it for the battle ahead, the battle for freedom
i hope so much that somehow this will lead usable non propertary public designs too
Ladybird because Mozilla is killing Firefox as fast as they can and I refuse to use Chrome or one of its forks.
At a slightly lower level, I’m excited about Servo. Activity died off for a bit but it’s gaining steam again. Still behind Ladybird progress-wise, but it will make a very strong foundation for a new web browser.
Servo is extra-important for things like webviews embedded in other apps.
I am a tad disappointed in Ladybird due to Andreas and Kirk debacle.
Well Immich is pretty fucking great
Yeah, it’s amazing!
Yeah and it keeps getting new fearures
Exciting enough for me to use on a daily basis, and I’m actively following their development progress. Not contributing, mind you. Nobody wants me of all people touching their codebase.
FreeCAD - The open source alternative to various proprietary parametric CAD and solid modelling software such as Solidworks, Fusion360, OnShape, etc. This recently passed its milestone 1.0 release at which point it could finally be considered actually broadly functional for actual real world use. Among various other widgets, I prominently used it to make this and this. Yeah, you guys know how it is.
I consider FreeCAD pretty important coming from the 3D printing hobbyist’s perspective because its the lone bulwark (well, okay, maybe also along with Blender and OpenSCAD) standing firm against the tidal wave of predatory bullshit being peddled by the commercial modelling software options, all of which at this point are genuine full-blown instruments of evil desperately trying to strangle, gatekeep, and paywall humankind’s ability to just make some goddamned shapes to 3D print.
In other news, I complied UZDoom from source the other night because somehow I missed that zdoom.org has precompiled binaries on their site, which I haven’t had to visit in years, but the UZDoom Github page doesn’t. We live and learn. UZDoom is pretty exciting because it’s a continuation of GZDoom with the added feature of kicking its insane former lead developer off of the project, or rather forking it out from under him. And everybody loves to play Doom.
I ought to contribute to FreeCAD.
For me it’s COSMIC desktop
But that’s been something I’ve been excited about for ages lol
I’m github illiterate. What is it?
Desktop environment for linux :3
The main big things that people talk about with it are the tiling features, and being written in rust, so those are the selling points for it I guess lol
Tested cosmic and as a sway(fx) user, I was not excited
I’ve used a bunch of TWMs (though primarily hyprland) and I found COSMIC to be pretty cool :3
I’m glad you found something suitable for you.
It’s taken Gnome and KDE years to refine, bug fix, improve features, etc. Cosmic is going to also take years to really develop too. For now it’s just Gnome-like, but in rust. Not interested testing a DE when there are far more mature options out there. But I hope to see Cosmic develop into something nicer in the coming years.
Immich has been the biggest impact for me lately, but I wouldn’t say it is the most exciting. I need to find one of those.
Linux of course, it’s been headlining lately in terms of improvements particularly on the gaming front, but also FreeBSD based on how quickly it’s been moving in terms of improvements on the general desktop front, FreeBSD is at the point where it’s a viable third option on the desktop if you’re not gaming, although that’s assuming you’re running its
CURRENTbranch since that’s where the latest development happens.Plasma Bigscreen. I would love to replace my Apple TVs with something more open.
Funnily enough, I never managed to get big screen working on a raspberry pi. I ended up flashing a broken build of Android TV to it instead
Currently I think the one that is the most exciting to me is Natsumi Browser, a modification for most firefox-based browsers with an interface similar to arc or zen browser. I used zen for months after it released, but every few updates some core functionality would break and they kept removing features that were essential to my workflow so I much prefer this as a modification on top of Floorp. I think the dev just does it as a hobby project, but there’s new useful features added frequently, and keybindings!
As someone who used zen for a while I feel that lol. I ended up going back to firefox, and I found ways to make it work for my workflow :3
